Ceri Radford is Assistant Comment Editor of the Telegraph.

Nintendo Wii injuries: it's not Wii, it's us

I wasn’t surprised at all to read that Nintendo Wiis can cause injuries including fractured limbs, damaged knees and tendonitis. With its wobble board (like a stunted plastic surfboard, which senses how you shift your weight) and hand-held gadgets that stand in for tennis rackets or ski poles, the Wii replicates many of the physical demands of sport, but without that essential psychological layer of caution that comes from real-life exercise. Who warms up before switching on their computer game? Who puts on their knee support? Despite the warnings provided by the console-maker, who actually goes to the effort to drag the coffee table out of the way and remove all sharp objects?

Taking a swing at Nintendo Wii golf

Computer games are about spontaneous fun and compulsive nerdy competitiveness, not sensible precautions. You’d never play a real game of tennis drunk, would you, but make it digital and it sometimes seems like a sensible late-night challenge. It’s not Wii’s fault; it’s ours.

And then some of the games are so surreal that you have to have had a few drinks to appreciate them. The worst injury of all is not to your knees, but your dignity: it’s one thing to stumble into work saying you strained a muscle on a 5k run, another that you can’t move your neck because you spent three house last night leaping at fish while pretending to be a digital penguin.